A Venezuelan National Guard stands at a checkpoint along the border with Colombia, Saturday. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday said he deployed military units to repel a possible attack after severing relations with U.S. ally Colombia.

"Colombia has never thought of attacking its brother nation [Venezuela] as the president of that country says, in a clear political deception of his own country," Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's office said in a statement issued Saturday.

Colombia will, however, continue to insist that Venezuela stop harboring members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), even though Chávez has consistently denied any collusion with the leftist rebels that have fought the Colombian government for decades.

"Colombia has gone to the channels of international law and will continue insisting on those mechanisms so there is an instrument to make the Venezuelan government comply with its obligations not to harbor Colombian terrorists," said the statement.

Relations between the two nations have soured in recent days after Mr. Uribe presented evidence that Mr. Chávez is harboring the FARC. On Friday, Chávez declared that he had ordered Venezuelan troops to the border in response to a perceived threat from Colombian forces.

But The Washington Post reported yesterday that an emergency meeting of South American foreign ministers in Quito, Ecuador, ended Friday without resolution of the diplomatic crisis, and that the relationship between the two nations is "in tatters."

According to Colombia's foreign minister, Venezuela's El Universal writes, the UNASUR ministers present had agreed on a declaration that would have included commitment to creating a "mechanism for effective cooperation and monitoring" of the FARC's presence within Venezuela, but that Venezuela vetoed the declaration "at the last minute." El Universal also reports that Venezuela denied that it had torpedoed a final declaration at the meeting, which Venezuela's foreign minister insisted was not the meeting's purpose.

FARC wants to talk?

Ironically, the ongoing spat between Chávez and Uribe comes amid modest signs of hope for a resolution between the FARC and the incoming administration of President-elect Juan Manuel Santos, who is set to enter office on August 7. BBC News reports that FARC leader Alfonso Cano offered in a recently broadcast videotape to talk to Mr. Santos's administration in an effort to find a political resolution to the guerrilla war the FARC has been waging since the 1960s.

"Between all of us, we have to find common ground and, with the input of a majority of Colombians, we have to identify the difficulties, the problems and contradictions, and create perspectives and a way out of the armed conflict," Mr. Cano said.

But Mr. Cano also criticized Santos, who served as defense minister under Uribe, and warned that the FARC would have "no other option but to continue the armed struggle" if Colombia continued its military campaign against the group.

"The government of Juan Manuel Santos has not closed the door to peace, but we're demanding that the guerrillas release all the people they've kidnapped, stop their terrorist activities ... and free the children they've recruited by force," he said.